After a rash of injuries afflicting teams drawn into Group G in the World Cup, some soccer pundits are questioning whether it’s more than mere coincidence. In the past week, three teams in the so-called Group of Death have seen injuries to significant players — the Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba and Portugal’s Nani will both miss the tournament, while Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar also picked up an injury during a friendly. This has turned the attention of many to the group’s fourth team: North Korea.

“I wouldn’t put anything past them,” said one British writer, who asked to remain anonymous. “Day to day, what are they doing? They’re shooting torpedoes at their neighbours and threatening nuclear war. They’re trying to sneak strikers into South Africa as goalkeepers. I’m sure they’ve got a hand in these ‘injuries’, somehow.”

But Kim jee-Suk, a team spokesperson, dismissed the claims of foul play as “capitalist propaganda fabricated to cast aspersions on the strength and perseverance of our footballers.”

“We have had no prior knowledge of these injuries for our opposing teams,” he said. “Perhaps their decision not to accept the love and teachings of Glorious Leader has left them frail and weak.”

Kim jee-Suk went on to say that adherence to Glorious Leader’s teachings has kept the North Korean players injury-free thus far. The claim could not be independently corroborated, as no one has any idea who any of the players are.

But despite the North Koreans’ protestations, there have been some whispers of unsavoury dealings in the locker rooms of Group G squads.

“There was an Asian man in here speaking to the players last week,” said Brazilian striker Grafite, through an interpreter. “I do not know who he is, but he appeared very nervous. He may have been a North Korean spy of some sort.”

A subsequent investigation revealed, however, that this shadowy figure was merely a Chinese match-fixer.

In North Korea, since no one can actually watch the game, their “Victory Celebration” with the “World Cup” for “triumphing over capitalist oppressors and allies of the United States” is scheduled for 3 days after North Korea is eliminated from the actual tournament.

I think that people who believe that North Korea is causing the injuries are a bunch of morons or they want to try to promote hatred against North Korea. Seriously, North Korea is not THAT good! If any country was able to cause injuries it would be the Americans. The North Koreans aren’t injured because they don’t play anyone outside of North Korea. There’s no way that any North Korean team would do something that would hurt one of the players on the national squad because you can just imagine what would happen to the player who caused the injury. It would be an Andreas Escobar incident all over again.

BTW – I’m Irish/Italian/French so I have no allegiance to Korea whatsoever. I just have common sense.